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Pro-Tips That Break Down Big Jobs into Small Tasks

One of the reasons business owners procrastinate is overwhelm. Feeling like a big job is too much to tackle can make even the most dedicated owner avoid going to work. Breaking down big jobs into small tasks can reduce the overwhelm and make taking action easier.

Some people are invigorated by a challenge and others are petrified. The secret that makes it possible to conquer any job is looking three feet in front of you, not out onto the horizon.

Imagine running a race through the mountains. If you look out ahead of you and see the hills looming in the distance, it can feel overwhelming and actually rob you of the stamina you need to run the race. By looking three feet ahead, you can focus on the next few steps over and over again until you crest the hills and conquer the mountains.

Here are some excellent pro-tips for breaking down BIG jobs into small tasks:

* Work one day at a time * Keep the main thing the main thing* Reverse engineer the outcome

Pro-Tip: What’s on today’s agenda? Big jobs take weeks, months, and sometimes years to complete but you can only work one day at a time. Ask yourself, “What’s on today’s agenda?” Keep your focus on what you can and need to do on any given day. Looking too far ahead can weigh you down with the enormity of the tasks that must be done. Map out what you can do realistically for the day in front of you and focus on completing one day’s worth of work at a time.

Pro-Tip: What’s the main thing happening at the moment? Many big projects have a wide variety of aspects that all matter in the grand scheme of things. Keep the main thing the main thing along the way. Sure, you may have to do something very specific at some point along the way, but don’t worry about that until the time is at hand. In the meantime, focus on whatever is the main event before moving onto the next big thing.

Pro-Tip: Start at the end and work backwards. It’s great to have goals. They are necessary and worthy. Deciding to build a product or start a new service is part of doing business. Tackle the project by working backwards. If the goal is a product, work backwards in a step-by-step manner to list out the actions that must happen to get to the goal. Then tackle them in reverse order. This creates small tasks that ultimately end up accumulating with the goal complete.

Breaking big jobs down into small tasks is a simple way to reduce overwhelm and stop procrastination. As a business owner, you can achieve some of your biggest goals by using these pro-tips that make tackling big projects easier.